Posts Tagged ‘Motorhead’

Well, I told you we needed fire goddammit! My fellow musicians (and uh, Terminator fans I guess): Meet Compressorhead, the world’s first robot band. Yup, you read that right. From Germany – the country that gave us Kraftwerk so we can’t act all that surprised – this three-piece is comprised of Fingers (guitars), Bones (bass) and four-armed (!!!) drummer Stickboy. The video sees them covering Motorhead‘s anthem Ace of Spades, and I’m guessing this video gives a little taste of what visitors at the Big Day Out festival in Australia can expect as they are slated to perform there.

Something tells me these fellas don’t mind playing without a guarantee, and it’s kinda ironic seeing cheap-ass clubs and pubs finally having within reach what they’ve probably been dreaming about for years: Musicians that not only shows up on time, but always plays covers and won’t be having a problem of performing just for the sheer novelty of it – and who probably never eat ‘cept the occasional battery every thousand years so they won’t bitch about you paying a hundred bucks split four ways minus gas.

If you’ve got Facebook you might wanna drop by their official page and shake hands with our future overlords. Their memory banks know no limit, so you might wanna make a good impression now before they take over the world. More videos can be found on their official website.

Ouch, ouch, ouch – OUCH! Dear Lord. I guess you guys’ve seen this – as it is going viral – but I thought I’d still share this and maybe add my own two cents to the whole debacle. Former solo guitarist Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. fame just released his solo album Nothing to Lose and late November saw the premiere of the video for They All Lie and Cheat. Wanna talk bad? As in B-A-D bad? Well, dust off the old Michael Jackson crystal glove ’cause this is Bad and nothing short of watching a damn trainwreck. The audio/visual equivalent of hitting your thumb with a damn hammer.

Now, I sure don’t run around being so presumptuous I deem my own tastes to be “in the right”, and lots of the stuff I myself enjoy are considered to be plain awful – those Ed Wood movies are for sure. And just to be sure where I’m coming from I am not a person that takes pleasure in gloating. But technically speaking this is so weak and ill-performed I am downright amazed somebody actually thought this was fit for a release. I myself have buried recordings that sure as hell sounded better than this, and whatever claim to fame Chris might’ve had as an ex-member of Blackie Lawless‘ infamous band has been reduced to just another joke (or “fail”) on YouTube. Or do anybody in their right mind expect this to increase interest and sales?

Produced by ex-Motorhead member Phil ‘Philthy’ Taylor I am so embarrassed for the guy and his fans (some of my friends actually are huge fans of W.A.S.P. and they’ve been hiding their heads in shame while talking about this or posting the video on Facebook) and right now my brain kinda refuse to process the information that this not only was recorded – and these were the takes they kept! – but released for consumption. Now, anybody who saw Penelope Spheeris‘ great documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years knows that Chris had (and obviously has) some serious issues when it comes to drugs and alcohol – if you haven’t seen the (pretty dark) drunken interview you can check it out on YouTube – and if nothing else his new album and video is a great example of cause and effect. That drunken buffoon of the 80s obviously kept his destructive lifestyle and 30 years later he’s lost what little voice he had, his ability to write music and – most saddening as he was a pretty wild soloist – his ability to play a guitar.

Well, this weekend turned out to be one of those amazingly creative and stimulating affairs that I just love to experience. First off a good friend decided to give me a good kick in the butt, insisted that I enjoy life at least once a month and dragged me away from the computer Friday evening for some mucho needed (and appreciated!) rest and relaxation with pizzas and taking the full plunge into the Walking Dead tv-series. I know the damn thing has been running since 2010, and pretty much everybody I know has been telling me how it’d be right up my alley, but I’m a stubborn, stubborn man that insists on doing everything in his own time. I made a mental note of checking it out “some day” early on of course, and now I’m glad I finally popped down some $$$ for the first season on DVD.

The hype was true and my friends were right to tell me to check it out. I liked how the creators managed to make such an improbable scenario so human at the same time (not too surprising though as the producer/director is Frank Darabont who directed The Green Mile.) Instead of going crazy and cover the screen with splatter (that fits good and well within the 80 minute format of a movie) they focused on the true horror of the story and made something that actually struck me as one of the sadder series I’ve seen. Like the old saying goes: in an Apocalypse it’s the survivors that damn their fate. Kick-ass show, although as someone who experienced the anti-horror hysteria of the 80s it was pretty damn surreal seeing the same concept being a hit TV show 30 years later. I’ll get into season 2 later on.

Saturday was one of those wrap-everything-up-and-move-on-to-the-next-project kinda days. I finished up all my parts for The Norliss Tapes upcoming It’s Halloween EP leaving Staffan to finish up the remaining bits for what now looks like will be a five-track record. It’s funny how he and I just keep riffing off of each other and what began as “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we did one Halloween-themed song to give away for free?” ended up as five songs that just came from brainstorming and sending each other various sound bytes to work with. I love it and gotta admit that it’s the first time I experience this sorta thing with a collaborator. Five tracks and there’ll be a couple of surprises thrown in (vocals!) so make sure you check it out in the next couple of days.

Finished with the songs I finally got around to remix and remaster a couple of tracks from my old hardcore project Gå Vidare till Norrmalmstorg. Swedish for “Advance to Mayfair” off the Monopoly game – both a kiss-off to rich kids as well as an ironic statement to how commercial we thought we sounded – the band was more interested in just pummeling an audience than setting new land speed records that is so common (and clichéd) in the genre, especially these postmodern days. Taking our inspiration from early Black Flag we mixed it with Motorhead and Black Sabbath in order to create a sound that was truly uncompromising – loud and heavy with a pure adrenalin delivery.

One session saw us recording a total of 14 songs in one day with a guy that had the typical less-than-cooperative Swedish engineer attitude of “I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, I don’t understand what you’re trying to achive, so I’m just gonna be arrogant all day and ignore every request you might have – or at least question it. But I do expect to get paid when it’s finished of course.” The session tapes remained unmixed and unreleased with the exception of a feeble attempt on my part of trying to remaster an existing rough mix about two years ago (with less than satisfactory results). Anyway, early Sunday morning I finally had the opportunity to sit down on my own and just unleash the punch-in-the-gut oomph I always knew this band had. It took roughly 12 hours of work, but the seven-track EP Blästrad (Swedish slang for being extremely drunk somewhat equivalent of “hammered”) is available via the band’s Bandcamphere. All members have heard it and are really happy with the results (me included), so how about a sample track:

Yup, I just stumbled across this bit of news and thought I’d share it: legendary hard rock outfit Motorhead recently launched their own line of earphones and headphones – or “headphönes” as they call them, actually bringing to mind Peter Sellers‘ classic Inspector Clouseau character from the Pink Panther films. Remember that scene where he walks from room to room with a huge, lit cartoonish bomb asking “A bömb? Did anyöne örder a bömb?” Anyway, in their press release the bands states:

No weak-kneed, lily-livered, tin-pot and skinny sounding little pieces of garbage, no, that ain’t Motörhead’s style. These are headphönes designed to deliver everything louder than everything else BUT with the sort of range, clarity and TRUE rock reproduction you’d expect from a band of road warriors who have been at the top of the tree year after year.

So far there’s three different sets of headphones (Bomber, Iron Fist and Motörizer) and six sets of earphones (three variations each of Overkill and Trigger), with prices ranging from 39 to 129 Euros (approx. $49 – 165). Read more about it on the official website here, and on Facebook as well. Check it out here.